Last fall I wrote liner notes for the SF Symphony’s new CD series, the “Keeping Score” companions. Each CD is the music-only version of one of the popular video programs. Due to space limitations (particularly given the need for multiple languages) I was obliged to keep the article for each CD painfully short—just 150 words, really more a blurb than a liner note. I took on the assignment as an intriguing writing exercise, and I think I pulled it off successfully.
The CDs have been released; the performances are stellar and the audio quality first-rate. I’m getting the usual kick out of seeing my writing (and my name) in print. This time around, I have the added fun of reading myself translated. Consider a sentence from the article on the Eroica: my original reads “Constructed on an epic scale and exploring an emotional range unprecedented in symphonic music, the Eroica thrilled some and alienated others.”
The French translation—which impresses me as being first-rate—comes out wordier, but that’s a Romance language for you: “Construite à une échelle herculiéene et explorant une gamme émotionelle sans précédent dans la musique symphonique, l’Héroïque a suscité des transports d’admiration chez certains, mais en a repoussé d’autres.” Using a computer-based translation tool to render this back in English, I get: Built on a Herculean scale and exploring an emotional range without precedent in the symphonic music, the Heroic One caused transport of admiration at some, but pushed back others of them. That’s pretty good.
My same sentence comes out thus in German: “Die einen waren fasziniert, die andern befremdet von dieser Eroica, die in einem gewaltigen Maßstab errichtet wurde und ein emotionales Spektrum erkundet, wie man das in der symphonischen Musik bis dahin nicht gekannt hatte.” Computer-rendered in English: The one were fascinated, the others appeared strange of these Eroica, which were established in an enormous yardstick and an emotional spectrum explored, as one had up to then not known in the symphonic music. Hmmm…I suppose there’s a good reason for swapping the phrases like that. My German is scanty-to-non-existent, so I’m not about to make any judgments regarding the quality of the translation; presumably it’s on the same high plane as the French. But jeez louize, my poor prose sure gets whacked.
The Eroica is, as I say in my liner note, “a milestone along Western music’s journey from Viennese Classicism to Romanticism.” It’s one hell of a great piece, endlessly fascinating and just about as endlessly analyzed and discussed. Beethoven himself conducted the public premiere of the Eroica on April 7, 1805. I sniffed around and learned a thing or two. To begin with, it was a Sunday. Thomas Jefferson was one month and three days into his second term as US President, while the Lewis & Clark survey expedition that he had sponsored left its winter camp in Fort Mandan, Montana and met up with the lovely young native woman Sacagawea. Back east, Francis Wilkinson Pickens—destined to become South Carolina’s Confederate governor—was born.
Two months later peace was declared in the war between Tripoli and the United States. Frankly, I had no idea that there had ever been a war between Tripoli and the United States, but as it happens, they’ve been at it twice, both times over piracy. In other war news, Admiral Horatio Nelson died later that year, gunned down during the Battle of Trafalgar.
The Eroica was not the only notable musical work to make its debut on an April 7; those honors are shared by Bach’s St. John Passion (1724) and the blockbuster musical South Pacific (1949). San Francisco’s Seals Stadium opened on April 7, 1931; the ballpark is long gone, so nowadays shoppers at Potrero Center buy groceries right where Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio once did his thing.
You probably know this, but the theme that underlies the variations in the last movement is also the source for a set of variations for solo piano. In a staggering burst of creative thinking, the musical community has opted to refer to that piano work as the Eroica Variations.
A Washington State vintner refers to his wines as Eroica, such as “Eroica Single Berry Select.”
There’s actually a TV movie about the symphony, its creation and premiere. The title is Eroica, rather obvious but I suppose sensible under the circumstances. (I think Opus 55 would have been cool, but then I’m a music geek.) Don’t confuse this with the 1958 flick Eroica, which is about resistance fighters in WWII. Or the 1966 Eroica, in which (according to Turner Classic Movies) “the lives of some high schoolers are turned upside down when one of their own is accidentally killed and his peers start to rebel against the society they live in.”
You may go on a cycling race/tour called L’Eroica in Tuscany.
You may purchase a Goldring Eroica H Cartridge to use with your turntable for playing your vinyl LPs; it will set you back $750.00, which in the world of high-end vinyl audiophilia is practically chump change.
A long-running Japanese comic book, From Eroica with Love, features an openly gay protagonist.
Alice Archer Sewall James wrote her poem Sinfonia Eroica in 1621. I think it’s utter doggerel, but here’s the first stanza so you can decide for yourself:
He comes, the happy warrior,
The wind has blown him on!
He is great and terrible and sweet,
From flaming hair to rapid feet.
His presence strides the earth full-armed, complete.
Every time I’m in a Muni Metro station and an inbound train arrives, I am reminded of the Eroica due to the Eflat-Gnatural chime that always announces inbound cars, just as I’m reminded of the Schubert Unfinished thanks to the descending Eflat-Bflat chime for outbound cars.
In case you find yourself having any difficulty listening to the Eroica, may I suggest the following web page: How to Listen to Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony, thoughtfully provided for us by Matthias Niska for eHow. I am particularly taken with his last instruction: After the music has finished playing, open your eyes. If you’d like, sketch the above images and emotions the music conjured on a drawing pad.
At the moment, I’m thinking of a comic-book drawing of Beethoven bicycling with Sacagawea, both of them sipping wine, with background music played courtesy of a fine Goldring cartridge.